As the Delhi Assembly election campaign gathers pace, all main players are out wooing one of the city’s most influential voter communities — the Purvanchalis.
The term refers to Delhi residents who trace their familial roots to eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. They are estimated to make up over a quarter of the capital’s voting population, concentrated largely in eastern, northeastern, and northwestern areas. They decide the result in over a dozen of Delhi’s 70 Assembly constituencies, according to Manoj Mishra, a journalist with the Hindi newspaper Jansatta, who has covered the elections in Delhi for over 30 years.
